USA > Maine > Oxford County > Fryeburg > The centennial celebration of the settlement of Fryeburg, Me., with the historical address > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
A small company of soldiers, mostly from this town, was stationed at Betliel during the remainder of the season, and also the next year.
Our townsmen, in 1777, on the retreat of the American forces from Canada, had built three stockade forts for their defence. One stood near the bridge at Mr. Weston's, one near Mr. Charles Walker's, and one near Mr. S. L. Chandler's, the late Joseph Colby place. It is not probable that they expected to withstand the whole British army under Burgoyne, but they would be prepared for just such predatory attacks as that on Bethel .*
The patriotism of the town was put to a still severer test in the progress of the war, that of heavy taxation. Volunteer-
*See Appendix C.
30
ing for military service may be the natural outworking of a restless spirit. Love of adventure, joined with sympathy for suffering ones, and flashing indignation against the aggressors, may prompt to just such a noble midnight expedition as that to the Androscoggin in '81. But there is no romance in pay- ing taxes. And when the wolf of gaunt poverty stands at the door to enter with the tax gatherer, no wonder there is dread at his coming.
The instructions given Dec., '80, to Dea. Simon Frye, the first Representative of the town, first make solemn declara- tion of their fidelity as citizens, and then equally earnest protestations of their poverty as tax payers. But the good Deacon was unable to make the General Court see it. So the next year he is made the bearer of a formidable Remonstrance.
Its statements were so clear and its positions so irrefutable that it should certainly have gained the point. I have not been able to verify the fact.
A noble instance, (and not a solitary one we are assured,) of disinterested patriotism is given at this trying juncture by our minister. Though a committee of the town report, Oct. 23, 1780, that the balance due him is &4,360, 2 s. 9 d. 3 gr .; or making allowance for depreciation, over £100, hard money, say $500, and in the corn part of the salary, a balance of 406 1-3 bushels, say $200 more, yet we find him a year later relinquishing £15, of what was his due, "to assist the town in carrying on this present unhappy war." The town voted their thanks for his generosity.
The instructions of the town to its early Representatives for some years immediately succeeding the Revolution, are papers of great interest.
It has been said that the principles and almost the language of our immortal Declaration of Independence, can be found entered upon the Records of many of the towns in the Old Bay State, for years before its adoption by the Continental Congress in '76.
We cannot claim that honor, not being born, unfortunately, till the next year. But what we should have said may be
31
gained from Resolutions respecting the apprehended return of refugee Loyalists, passed June 2, '85. Most decidedly do they protest against " the admission of such persons as have taken refuge under the British King, during the late struggles in the defence of our just rights and liberties, and thereby been instrumental of protracting the late barbarous and cruel war against their own country, and as far as in their power been the means of the expense of much blood and treasure of their late fellow citizens." " All persons in that predicament and that have been declared traitors to their country, ought never to be suffered to return and dwell in it again, but be entirely excluded therefrom." Right ground in dealing with the traitors of the Revolution. Will it not apply to all traitors since ?
The instructions of the town to its Representatives are not always uniform. Thus in '86, through Paul Langdon's rather graceful pen, Mr. Moses Ames, Representative for that year, is directed to favor free trade, as one means of relieving the country from its present embarrassments.
The next year, Gen. Frye, in an elaborate and able paper, claims the necessity of a proper system of imposts and excise ; or rather assuming this as the established policy of the coun- try, goes on in a full exposition of his views financially, intro- ducing a scheme which, as far as I understand the subject, shadows forth almost the identical system which our great financier, Secretary Chase, has so successfully adopted.
The distresses of the times, (the date of Shay's rebellion,) naturally exhibit themselves in the action of the town at this period.
The question also of separation from Massachusetts, was much discussed. The town, March 6, 1786, voted unani- mously in favor of separation, and sent to the Convention held at Portland the next Sept., upon the subject, five out of the thirty-one delegates assembled .*
* The following were the members of the Convention from Fryeburg: Joseph Frye, Paul Langdon, Daniel Fessenden, Isaac Walker, Nathaniel Merrill.
L
32
A matter of great interest is the estimate the town placed upon the. Constitution, when first submitted in '88. They express confidence in the integrity and abilities of their Dele- gate to the Convention, Mr. Ames, admit the value of his opportunities for hearing the arguments on both sides, and of course making up a proper judgment. "But," they proceed, "the duty they owe themselves and posterity constrains them to express their disapprobation of some parts of the Constitu- tion." They object to the powers and mode of appointment and length of term of the Senate, and that the Legislative power of Congress will supersede and in its consequences en- tirely vacate the Constitutions of the respective States. "And it appears highly absurd to propose an oath or affirmation to the officers of Government, of whom no religious test is required." These are their most material objections. They, therefore, conclude, as follows: "We would not wish that it should be entirely rejected, as we esteem it, with proper amendments, to be well calculated to promote the welfare of the Union."
Who will say that this is not a sound view of that great instrument, the view of sober common sense, equally removed from a blind, unquestioning adoration, and from captious denunciation. We must remember that the Consti- tution had gathered nothing of that sanctity with which it is justly enshrined to us. They could not anticipate the unnumbered blessings which would flow from its adoption.
The Revolutionary war was scarcely closed and its heavy burdens were by no means disposed of, when the town in '84 voted to build four school houses, 18 feet square and 7 feet stud, in the different parts of the town. Three of these would probably be built near where the forts of the Revolution stood, viz : at Seven Lots, near Charles Walker's, and the Jos. Colby farm, and the fourth near Rev. Mr. Fessenden's. What these humble edifices accomplished, we can judge only by the intel- ligence of the generation trained in part through the priv- ileges they afforded.
33
In '87 they set about the more formidable work of raising their first house of worship, i. e. the town voted to build a meeting house. Messrs. William Wiley, Nathaniel Merrill, Stephen Farrington, Simon Frye, and Samuel Chiarles, were made a committee for drafting a plan and estimating the ex- pense. The steps taken to secure its completion need not be detailed.
For many years worship was held in this first meeting house of the town, standing on the Gamage place, near Bear Pond. It had no great pretension either in size or architecture. Its dimensions were twenty five by fifty feet, with three windows of nine lights on each side, one at the end. There were no pews and no gallery ; the men sat on one side, the women on the other; and odd enough it seemed, when with the introduc- tion of pews, the sexes sat together. Previously, at the giving out of the Hymn, Mr. Joshua Gamage rose near the desk, and immediately from right and left filed the sons and daugh- ters of Asaph, skilled in song, and formed in solid phalanx near their leader. Mr. Gamage was famous as a singer, and trained a host of young Pequawketers to accompany him ; for our grand-mothers were a tuneful race, and some of our grand-fathers learned to keep them company, and their united voices not only filled the little temple by the Pond, but rang out upon the forests around, like the sound of many waters.
However lacking in harmony Fryeburg has been in some matters, her singing has always been of a highi order. The Farrington family has never gained the notoriety of the Hutchinsons, but it is from no lack of ability.
About the year 1790, Baptist views were first preached in town. Elder Zebadee Richardson came with his family from Sanford, and established a church of that denomination. Mr. Richardson lived first near Isaac Charles', at the turn of the river, and afterward on a lot between Nathaniel Charles' and Kimball Pond. He preached for many years, alternately with Mr. Fessenden, at the Centre, Mr. Fessenden giving half of his time to the Corner, and Mr. Richardson, probably, his alternate Sabbaths to the North part of the town. 5
34
The two ministers lived in mutual respect and good will, but symptoms of contention sometimes displayed themselves among their people.
How easy to forget that one of the glories of our free insti- tutions is the right of private judgment in matters of faith, the privilege of maintaining that worship which conscience dictates. It will be the perfection of our christianity, when differences of opinion will be regarded with the charity which " seeketh not her own," and " thinketh no evil." And yet we yield to none in the respect and veneration due to those who " contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints," -only let it be that they contend lawfully,-and for the faith, not for supremacy. Rev. Mr. Richardson died suddenly at Sanford. Many of his best members were advanced in years. No effective maintenance of his views was sustained, and in process of time the church became extinct.
That some of its members, and many more of the children of deceased members, and their neighbors generally in the north part of the town, became interested in and adopted Universalist views, and after occupying, at intervals, for years the Center Meeting House, secured for themselves the neat house of worship near Mud City, are facts too recent to require more than this brief notice.
The introduction of Methodist views has been so compara- tively recent, as also to require no very extended notice. The bitter controversies amid which the sect had its birth among us, have happily been hushed, and for years its ministers have been welcomed as worthy coadjutors with those of the older faitlı, in every good work.
Another religious society, Free Will Baptist, has at times flourished and at times declined, in the east part of the town.
A portion of our territory, cut off from us by the Saco and the ponds and low impassible meadows adjacent, remained unsettled till about the year 1806. It was some twelve years later that families from Cornishi, Limerick, &c., came and made themselves choice farms, by subduing the ridge which separates Elkins' brook from the Saco. Here, shut in by
35
1770921
Pleasant Mountain on the east ; by the river with its fringe of impassible meadows on the west; and Lower Kezer Pond on the north ; they lived a neighborhood very much by themselves, till the building of the great road to Bridgton, in '34.
A beautiful portion of the town, the industry of its families, the Pikes and Hapgoods, Chadburns, Warrens and Harndens, has developed in it some of our most productive farms.
We come now to an item of our history which every son of Fryeburg may contemplate with just pride, the founding of our Academy. Next to the early provision for public worship, no one thing shows the wisdom and public spirit of our fathers more manifestly than its establishment.
Mr. Paul Langdon; a graduate of Harvard, and son of one of its Presidents, had been a resident of the town for some years, certainly since '86, at which time the instructions to the Representative were drawn up by him. He was born to be a teacher, and in each of the four humble school houses of the town, had doubtless been bringing forward its children to a higher grade of studies than is usual in common schools.
So in 1791, a Grammar School is established, which, Feb. 9th, 1792, was incorporated as an Academy, and endowed by the General Court with a valuable tract of land. The fol- lowing were appointed its first Trustees:
Rev. William Fessenden, Fryeburg,
" Nathaniel Porter, Conway, Henry Y. Brown, Esq., Brownfield,
David Page, Esq., Conway, Moses Ames, Fryeburg, James Osgood, James Osgood, Conway, Paul Langdon, Brownfield.
Although five of the nine Trustees were from the towns of Brownfield and Conway, they lived, excepting Rev. Dr. Por- ter, within a mile of the Academy ; the two Brownfield Trus- tees on lots immediately adjoining it .*
* The line between Fryeburg and Brownfield ran originally across the
1500911
C
36
At their first meeting, March 3, they completed their Board by electing, as members, Rev. Daniel Little of Kennebunk, Rev. Paul Coffin of Buxton, Hon. George Thatcher of Bid- deford, and Thomas Parsons, Esq., of Parsonsfield.
Rev. Mr. Little was made their President. Paul Langdon is elected Preceptor, at a salary of £52, the first year begin- ning the previous November, £60 the second; Jacob Evans and Jeremiah Page, Monitors. Tuition is fixed at six shillings for the original twenty-five founders; seven to all others.
Rev. William Fessenden, Simon Frye, Esq., and Capt. John Webster, are made a Committee to revise the regulations of the original founders. H. Y. Brown, Simon Frye, and Na- thaniel Merrill, Esq., a Committee on sale of lands ;- and the Institution is thus promptly set upon its work of public benefi- cence. It was from the first a school of a high order. Its annual exhibitions rivalled the College Commencements of that day; young ladies coming on horseback, a long day's journey through the forests, to attend the ball with which they invariably closed.
Oct. 14, 1801, Col. Page, Rev. William Fessenden and Judah Dana, Esq., are chosen a Committee to provide a Pre- ceptor, and the April following report that they have em- ployed DANIEL WEBSTER. To these gentlemen is doubtless due the honor of giving this unknown youth his first start in the world. He did things in his after days to make himself known, but he never forgot the humble Institution which was his first stepping stone to public life.
In September, 1802, Mr. (afterwards Rev.) Amos Jones Cook succeeds Mr. Webster as Preceptor. He continued in this position till 1833, the period of a whole generation. Mr. Cook was a man of most estimable character, of easy, unas- suming dignity, of ready sympathies, and unaffected kindness, of scholarly tastes, and unswerving integrity. Through his popularity as a Teacher, the Grammar School building, near
slope of Pine Hill, nearly parallel with the street to the bridge, crossing the old Academy lot at the corner of Main street, and passing within a rod or two of the grove in which the Centennial gathering was held.
37
Pine Hill, soon became entirely inadequate to the demands of the Institution, and steps were taken to erect one more suitable.
And now arises one of those very natural controversies as to location. The Village and Fessenden Hill are the competi- tors, and the strife runs high. The friends of the rival locali- ties back up their preferences by subscriptions, to be paid if those preferences are gratified.
The decision is in favor of the Village, although as a com- promise, the old site is abandoned, and the new building placed a half mile nearer the defeated party. But it is probable that the Academy has never regained its place in the affections of the people in the lower part of the town.
The building erected was a model. To our young eyes it was a very temple of Ephesus for beauty, and its comely pro- portions attracted the attention of strangers. It was not strange that when the present more substantial but far less attractive building rose from its ashes, many, like the Jews with Zerubbabel, wept for their remembrance of the former house.
The new Academy, as it was called, was dedicated in 1806, and for more than twenty-five years was the theater of Mr. Cook's labors as a teacher. In one of its rooms he gathered a cabinet both of minerals and curiosities, for a time the finest in the state. How our young eyes were dazzled by the array of precious stones. How wonderingly we looked at the big Salem witchcraft gun, and thought it a much more appropriate weapon for slaying the bloody Paugus, than the modest little firelock near it which really did the execution.
Here was also a complete file of "the Echo," * which Rus- sell waked amid those classic hills; and more than this, the veritable letters of Jefferson and Adams to Preceptor Cook, the former enclosing one from Washington, written on the adoption of the Constitution, and accompanying a copy of the immortal document to Jefferson at Paris. Nor must "The
* Russell's Echo, or the North Star, is the title of a paper published at Fryeburg during the years 1798-9.
1
1
38
Student's Companion "* be overlooked, an admirable compi- lation, Mr. Cook's pet child, as good perhaps as any Student's companion could be, save the kind that romped with him out of school hours, and made Pine Hill and Jockey Cap vocal with the songs and shouts of buoyant unhackneyed youth, to sober down in after years into a companion, for weal or woe, heightening the joys and sharing the sorrows of life. That kind of a companion beats Mr. Cook's altogether, and Frye- burg Academy used to be half filled with them!
Since Mr. Cook's resignation of the Preceptorship in 1833, a full half score have followed him in that office, their united terms only equalling his. With varied success, but all with honest purpose, have they labored to keep this our Pierian Spring a fountain of healthful influences to this community, of inspiration to its youth.
One of these, t after twenty years of absence, is with us to- day, not able to look upon the scenes of rural beauty and mountain grandeur which he so much loved, but with a heart swelling with happy remembrances, as he is assured of our grateful recognition of his services, and of our hearty sym- pathy in his bereavement.
But there must be limits, even to historical reminiscences. A mid-summer day would not suffice to speak of all that might well claim our notice.
How Fryeburg flourished at the end of her first half cen- tury, and for some ten years later ; how she had become the mountain metropolis, and set the fashions, and did the trading for the whole country round ; how students flocked, not only to her Academy, but to sit at the feet of Dana and Bradley, Lincoln, Chase, and Barrows, her Gamaliels of the law ; or to follow Dr. Ramsay in his erratic, but powerful delinea-
*Mr. Cook published a volume of choice selections in prose and verse under this title, long used in the Academy as a reading and parsing book.
t Amos Richardson, Esq., Principal, since leaving Fryeburg, of a justly popular Female Seminary, in Freehold, N. J., and for some half dozen years past by a sad accident rendered totally blind. During his Preceptorship the Academy enjoyed a high degree of prosperity, and celebrated its semi-cen- tennial anniversary, the oration by Rev. J. P. Fessenden, son of our first minister.
39
tions of human anatomy ; how the one-horse mail, Mr. Irishs carrier, brought in, twice a week, the news from the great world, and passed it along, once a week, through the moun- tains to Coos, Fryeburg being thus the centre of staging, till Conway stole it from her, while she was napping; how the musters were the annual Saturnalia of fun and frolic, as well as of arms, till Brownfield took them away with the big guns; how the ministerial fund became a bone of contention till it was broken up and each had his share; how the Academy was fast going the same way, and was saved, so as by fire ; how the wonderful revival of '31, changed the whole life and current of thought in households and in neighborhoods, and gave religion a pre-eminence where it had been neglected or contemned; the bridges we persisted in building, though the river was as obstinately bent on carrying them away, till the genius of Paddelford triumphed, and like another Rarey tames and saddles the Saco's chafing current ; the mills we have built, and those which should have been, but are not built ; the roads which have ever been a matter of just pride to the town ; the freshets which carry away farms from the Seven Lots, to build them again in Bog Pond ; the cattle shows which very well supply the place of military musters, except that in these times we need both ; the aged men and venerable women, who for fourscore years, and fourscore and ten, and in several instances, for about a century, have borne the burdens of life's journey, and gone to the grave honored and revered by the whole community ;- all these things, and more, are they not written, or to be written, in the history of Fryeburg, whose advent is somewhere in the "good time coming ?"
Were we to divide the century into three periods of nearly equal length, that from 1790 to 1825 would include by far the most interesting portion of Fryeburg's history. This period opens with the founding of the Academy, and closes with the centennial celebration of Lovewell's fight, one of Fryeburg's greatest days. The town had acquired an early
40
maturity and influence, retained it for one generation, and since has been gradually receding in its relative importance. There was great energy and animation in all its business interests. It was the acknowledged center of trade for all the region, the seat of law and of learning, of fashion and poli- tics, for the whole upper Saco valley.
In 1798-9, but two papers were published in Maine, one in Portland, the other in Fryeburg.
During this period the canal was cut, being commenced Nov., 1816, completed in '19, which added immeasurably to the agricultural resources of the town, injuring, undoubtedly, some tracts, by deepening the river bed, but bringing under cultivation ten times as much, before too low and wet for occupancy.
The men of Fryeburg were, during this period, far above the average, in ability and intelligence. The pulpit was filled successively by Messrs .. Fessenden and Whiting, Drs. Porter and Hurd, three of them far more than ordinary men. In the Academy were Langdon, Webster and Cook. In the law were McGaw, Dana, Bradley, Chase, Lincoln, and Barrows. While as physicians, Ramsey, Benton, Griswold, were emi- nent in their profession,-Drs. Barrows and Towle were on the threshold of their extensive practice.
The first settlers of the town were drawing near to the verge of life, but were most of them active to the last. Gen. Frye died in '94. His nephew, Judge Simon Frye, in 1822. They went to the grave full of years and of honors, and left pre- cious memories of their virtues, both public and private. Capt. H. Y. Brown, first proprietor of Brownfield, and after remov- ing from the intervale, (as mentioned, page 23,) erecting a mansion at the head of Main St., where his great-grandson, Joshua B. Osgood, now lives, a man of uncommon energy and commanding ability, died in '96. Col. Joshua B. Osgood of Haverhill, Mass., who married his only daughter, and who combined the energy of the old forester with scholarly attainments, as a graduate of Harvard, died at the early age of 38 years, in '91. He was greatly interested in the found-
41
ing of the Academy, though he lived not to rejoice in its usefulness. .
Among the remarkable men of the town, during this period, was Dr. Alexander Ramsay. Born in Edinburg and enjoying all the advantages of a medical education in that far-famed city, he brought to this country, and to this retired community, a wealth of anatomical knowledge, which might have adorned the highest circles in the profession. Most thoroughly devoted as he ever professed himself to the fair sex, he was married only to anatomy, and with singular disinterestedness, would have all men share in his enthusiastic attachment. His lec- tures drew around him large numbers of medical students, who profited by his vivid demonstrations and not always mer- ciful dissections. He left a rich cabinet of preparations which it is presumed surpassed that of any medical school save that at Philadelphia.
Capt. Vere Royce deserves a prominent place in our local picture gallery. A descendant of the Irish nobility, his educa- tion and address were those of a gentleman of the old regime. In command of a company at Braddock's defeat, he held his men in the midst of the murderous ambuscade, till accosted by Washington. " Why don't you retreat, Capt. Royce," "I have had no orders to retreat. Steady men, make ready ! take aim ! Fire !" " But this will never do, Capt., I order you to retreat," said Washington. "Attention company ! about face, march !" and so they marched off the field. Capt. Royce was a great mathematician, pursued the study through life, and left sheets of original dissertations on his favorite science, which should not have been lost to the world. He was eminent as a Surveyor, as the lines of the many divisions and sub-divisions of the town attest.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.